Scientists have discovered a new population of the Belalanda chameleon (Furcifer belalandaensis), boosting hope for one of Madagascar's rarest chameleons.
While the species was known only from a handful of trees in two Malagasy villages, researchers from the University of Kent's Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) have discovered another population near a third village.
According to DICE professor, Richard Griffiths, the discovery is "very important for [the Belalanda chameleon], which is probably one of the world's rarest reptiles."
Griffiths adds that, "Habitat loss and degradation is the main threat to chameleons and biodiversity in general in Madagascar. Our teams are working closely with local communities and our partners to raise awareness of the plight of these amazing creatures."
Thursday, April 21, 2011
New bird discovered in Madagascar
CITATION: Steve M. Goodman, Marie Jeanne Raherilalao, and Nicholas L. Block. Patterns of morphological and genetic variation in the Mentocrex kioloides complex (Aves: Gruiformes: Rallidae) from Madagascar, with the description of a new species. Zootaxa. 2776: 49-60 (2011).
The rich and unique biodiversity of Madagascar has a new member: a forest dwelling bird in the rail family, dubbed Mentocrex beankaensis. In 2009 US and Malaygasy scientists conducted a survey in Madagascar's dry Beanka Forest. They discovered several new species, of which the new rail is the first to be described.
"This bird they’ve known about for decades, but no one has been able to go find it and get a specimen of it," said Nick Block, a graduate student at the University of Chicago who studied the new birds molecular genetic told the Chicago Sun Times, describing the new species as 'not common at all'.
Similar to another Malagasy rail, researchers were able to show Mentocrex beankaensis is a new species with taxonomic and DNA studies.
The dry Beanka forests, where the species survived, rest on limestone, which in some cases have formed dramatic spires. The Beanka forest protected area is currently managed by Biodiversity Conservation Madagascar (BCM).
"We [BCM] have taken an approach to the conservation of the Beanka Forest resting on working in unison with local people to fulfill aspects of their economic and development needs and bestowing a sense of natural patrimony of the organisms that live in their forest. These are aspects critical for any long-term successful project. The discovery of this new species of bird and other organisms during the late 2009 expedition underlines the importance of our mission and the uniqueness of the Beanka Forest," the director of BCM, Aldus Andriamamonjy, said in a press release.
The rich and unique biodiversity of Madagascar has a new member: a forest dwelling bird in the rail family, dubbed Mentocrex beankaensis. In 2009 US and Malaygasy scientists conducted a survey in Madagascar's dry Beanka Forest. They discovered several new species, of which the new rail is the first to be described.
"This bird they’ve known about for decades, but no one has been able to go find it and get a specimen of it," said Nick Block, a graduate student at the University of Chicago who studied the new birds molecular genetic told the Chicago Sun Times, describing the new species as 'not common at all'.
Similar to another Malagasy rail, researchers were able to show Mentocrex beankaensis is a new species with taxonomic and DNA studies.
The dry Beanka forests, where the species survived, rest on limestone, which in some cases have formed dramatic spires. The Beanka forest protected area is currently managed by Biodiversity Conservation Madagascar (BCM).
"We [BCM] have taken an approach to the conservation of the Beanka Forest resting on working in unison with local people to fulfill aspects of their economic and development needs and bestowing a sense of natural patrimony of the organisms that live in their forest. These are aspects critical for any long-term successful project. The discovery of this new species of bird and other organisms during the late 2009 expedition underlines the importance of our mission and the uniqueness of the Beanka Forest," the director of BCM, Aldus Andriamamonjy, said in a press release.
Saving Madagascar's largest carnivorous mammal: the fossa
INTERVIEW WITH MIA-LANA LÜHRS
Madagascar is a land of wonders: dancing lemurs, thumbnail-sized chameleons, the long-fingered aye-aye, great baobab trees, and the mighty fossa. Wait—what? What's a fossa? It's true that when people think of Madagascar rarely do they think of its top predator, the fossa—even if they are one of the few who actually recognizes the animal. While the fossa gained a little notice in the first Madagascar film by Dreamworks, its role in the film was overshadowed by the lemurs. In this case, art imitates life: in conservation and research this feline-like predator has long lived in the shadow of its prey, the lemur. Even scientists are not certain what to do with the fossa: studies have shown that it's not quite a cat and not quite a mongoose and so the species—and its few Malagasy relatives—have been placed in their own family, the Eupleridae, of which the fossa (Cryptoprocta ferox) is the biggest. But if this is the first you've heard of such matters, don't feel bad: one of the world's only fossa-researchers, Mia-Lana Lührs also stumbled on the species.
"I found out about fossas only by coincidence. When I was working in a zoo, I became familiar with the European Endangered Species Program (EEP). Searching these programs on the web, I came to the website of Duisburg Zoo where the fossa’s EEP is managed. When I saw the pictures of the fossas on that page, I was absolutely puzzled that I had never heard of this species before, although I have always been interested in carnivores. I couldn’t even tell which family of carnivore this one might belong to," Mia-Lana Lührs, a PhD student at the University of Göttingen in Germany, told mongabay.com. Despite such a puzzling introduction to Madagascar's biggest predator, Lührs has become one of the world's foremost experts on the enigmatic animal.
Mia-Lana Lührs is a PhD student of the department of Sociobiology/Anthropology at the University of Göttingen. Her thesis focuses on the social system of Madagascar’s largest extant carnivore, the fossa (Cryptoprocta ferox). Photo © Melanie Dammhahn.
Lührs says that fossas may have been, in part, neglected by conservationists and researchers for so long, because of the "dominance of primatological research (i.e. lemurs) in Madagascar […] in fact, fossas are such fascinating creatures that they should be popular all around the world despite their limited distribution."
Many characteristics make fossas wildly intriguing: adept arboreal hunting skills to take down lemurs and bizarre mating habits, including smaller females dominating the process, mating that can last hours and occur with multiple partners, and vocalizations that Lührs says "sounds like a murder is occurring."
"What follows is, how David Attenborough put it, 'a delicate affair'," Lührs explains. "Females will mate multiply with many but not all males present. They can copulate up to 57 times with up to 10 different males. A single copulation can last longer than six hours and one female can mate in one such period for 40 hours in total. That is definitely something interesting to look at as a fossa’s mating activity by far exceeds mammal average."
In her study of the fossa, Lührs has also had the thrill of watching these acrobatic carnivores hunt, including the first evidence of cooperative hunting by three fossa males.
"What followed was probably the most impressive scene I have ever seen in my life," she says. "Three male fossas started to hunt the single sifaka. [...] The whole chase went very quickly and at some point I was in the middle of it because the hunting fossas suddenly used the little wooden hut, which I used as a hide, as climbing substrate. Two males jumped right and left from me on the wooden beams of the hut, and splinters of wood, leaves and dust flew around me. […] Forty-five minutes after the very start of this hunt, the three male fossas finally managed to catch the sifaka when it became tired and made a single wrong decision."
Lührs believes the cooperative hunting was an evolutionary behavior leftover from Madagascar's past when giant lemurs would have provided fossas with meatier, and more difficult, prey.
"Now that giant lemurs are extinct, cooperative hunting appears useless unless it allows the participating individuals to catch a sifaka more rapidly. In the case that I have seen, it took three males 45 minutes. All three of them were totally exhausted afterwards and had to share about three kilograms of meat by three. That does not appear to me as an effective strategy," Lührs explains.
The fossa. Photo © Nick Garbutt .
Unfortunately fossas, like much of Madagascar's wild biodiversity, are faced with extinction. Classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN Red List, Lührs says more research is needed to know if fossas are in fact doing worse than believed. The greatest impact on fossas is habitat loss, which has led to numerous challenges for big predators requiring large spaces to hunt. In her study site, Kirindy Forest, Lührs sees what she calls a 'crowding effect', where fossa individuals are forced to compete for dwindling habitat.
"It is likely that we will soon see dramatic consequences of the ongoing habitat destruction, such as an increase in injuries and death due to frequent encounters of fossas with one another, high infant mortality (for the latter reason and because of food shortage), bad body condition, especially during the lean season in winter due to high competition for food, as well as all the problems of small populations such as inbreeding, sex ratio shifts and the threat of diseases. Moreover, more and more fossas seem to leave the forest in search for habitat and food," Lührs says.
Dwindling forests have also pushed fossas into Malagasy villages. The fossas are typically looking for poultry to catch, and seen as pests they are sometimes attacked by villagers.
"Given the value of every single chicken for a poor villager, this conflict can result in killings of the respective fossas. […] Mortality of fossas in surrounding village areas seems to be a major problem," Lührs says.
Lührs says she is pessimistic, but not hopeless regarding the long-term survival of the fossa. To save the species the first thing that is needed is more research, including "an intensive fossa survey all over Madagascar" according to Lührs. Right now conservationists simply don't know how many fossas survive and where populations are viable.
Where forest has been burnt down, savannah dominates Madagascar’s landscape. This habitat offers grazing ground for many zebus but its biodiversity is low. Very few native species manage to survive in savannah habitat, mainly generalizers, such as birds and insects. Photo © Melanie Dammhahn.
"On the longer perspective, I see an urgent need to make local people benefit from conservation: possibly the only way to change their mind about how to deal with fossas would be to assign some economic value to a living fossa," Lührs says. "Until now villagers do not see any economic value in a fossa, they just perceive it as a pest. But in fact, many tourists come every year to Kirindy to see exactly this species. Their money, however, rarely ends up in the villages. What we need is the awareness that the forest and its biodiversity are property of Malagasy people and that we should pay money for them to protect this forest and this species thereby creating some alternative income. And we are talking about very little money from our perspective which could make big changes from a Malagasy perspective."
For Lührs working with the fossa, a little known species, has its many rewards, including the chance to make new discoveries and develop a conservation plan that may make all the difference between long-term survival and extinction.
"I've always been much more concerned about species that die out secretly without anyone ever knowing they existed at all. The fossa is certainly one of those species. For the sake of conservation of the world’s biodiversity, I would therefore like to encourage more researchers to focus on the 'forgotten species in the background'," she says.
In a January 2011 interview Mia-Lana Lührs discussed new discoveries about Madagascar's biggest predator, the fossa; conservation efforts needed to save the species; the joy of working with a little-known species; and if she'd whether be a male or female fossa.
A curious fossa. Photo © Nick Garbutt .
Madagascar is a land of wonders: dancing lemurs, thumbnail-sized chameleons, the long-fingered aye-aye, great baobab trees, and the mighty fossa. Wait—what? What's a fossa? It's true that when people think of Madagascar rarely do they think of its top predator, the fossa—even if they are one of the few who actually recognizes the animal. While the fossa gained a little notice in the first Madagascar film by Dreamworks, its role in the film was overshadowed by the lemurs. In this case, art imitates life: in conservation and research this feline-like predator has long lived in the shadow of its prey, the lemur. Even scientists are not certain what to do with the fossa: studies have shown that it's not quite a cat and not quite a mongoose and so the species—and its few Malagasy relatives—have been placed in their own family, the Eupleridae, of which the fossa (Cryptoprocta ferox) is the biggest. But if this is the first you've heard of such matters, don't feel bad: one of the world's only fossa-researchers, Mia-Lana Lührs also stumbled on the species.
"I found out about fossas only by coincidence. When I was working in a zoo, I became familiar with the European Endangered Species Program (EEP). Searching these programs on the web, I came to the website of Duisburg Zoo where the fossa’s EEP is managed. When I saw the pictures of the fossas on that page, I was absolutely puzzled that I had never heard of this species before, although I have always been interested in carnivores. I couldn’t even tell which family of carnivore this one might belong to," Mia-Lana Lührs, a PhD student at the University of Göttingen in Germany, told mongabay.com. Despite such a puzzling introduction to Madagascar's biggest predator, Lührs has become one of the world's foremost experts on the enigmatic animal.
Mia-Lana Lührs is a PhD student of the department of Sociobiology/Anthropology at the University of Göttingen. Her thesis focuses on the social system of Madagascar’s largest extant carnivore, the fossa (Cryptoprocta ferox). Photo © Melanie Dammhahn.
Lührs says that fossas may have been, in part, neglected by conservationists and researchers for so long, because of the "dominance of primatological research (i.e. lemurs) in Madagascar […] in fact, fossas are such fascinating creatures that they should be popular all around the world despite their limited distribution."
Many characteristics make fossas wildly intriguing: adept arboreal hunting skills to take down lemurs and bizarre mating habits, including smaller females dominating the process, mating that can last hours and occur with multiple partners, and vocalizations that Lührs says "sounds like a murder is occurring."
"What follows is, how David Attenborough put it, 'a delicate affair'," Lührs explains. "Females will mate multiply with many but not all males present. They can copulate up to 57 times with up to 10 different males. A single copulation can last longer than six hours and one female can mate in one such period for 40 hours in total. That is definitely something interesting to look at as a fossa’s mating activity by far exceeds mammal average."
In her study of the fossa, Lührs has also had the thrill of watching these acrobatic carnivores hunt, including the first evidence of cooperative hunting by three fossa males.
"What followed was probably the most impressive scene I have ever seen in my life," she says. "Three male fossas started to hunt the single sifaka. [...] The whole chase went very quickly and at some point I was in the middle of it because the hunting fossas suddenly used the little wooden hut, which I used as a hide, as climbing substrate. Two males jumped right and left from me on the wooden beams of the hut, and splinters of wood, leaves and dust flew around me. […] Forty-five minutes after the very start of this hunt, the three male fossas finally managed to catch the sifaka when it became tired and made a single wrong decision."
Lührs believes the cooperative hunting was an evolutionary behavior leftover from Madagascar's past when giant lemurs would have provided fossas with meatier, and more difficult, prey.
"Now that giant lemurs are extinct, cooperative hunting appears useless unless it allows the participating individuals to catch a sifaka more rapidly. In the case that I have seen, it took three males 45 minutes. All three of them were totally exhausted afterwards and had to share about three kilograms of meat by three. That does not appear to me as an effective strategy," Lührs explains.
The fossa. Photo © Nick Garbutt .
Unfortunately fossas, like much of Madagascar's wild biodiversity, are faced with extinction. Classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN Red List, Lührs says more research is needed to know if fossas are in fact doing worse than believed. The greatest impact on fossas is habitat loss, which has led to numerous challenges for big predators requiring large spaces to hunt. In her study site, Kirindy Forest, Lührs sees what she calls a 'crowding effect', where fossa individuals are forced to compete for dwindling habitat.
"It is likely that we will soon see dramatic consequences of the ongoing habitat destruction, such as an increase in injuries and death due to frequent encounters of fossas with one another, high infant mortality (for the latter reason and because of food shortage), bad body condition, especially during the lean season in winter due to high competition for food, as well as all the problems of small populations such as inbreeding, sex ratio shifts and the threat of diseases. Moreover, more and more fossas seem to leave the forest in search for habitat and food," Lührs says.
Dwindling forests have also pushed fossas into Malagasy villages. The fossas are typically looking for poultry to catch, and seen as pests they are sometimes attacked by villagers.
"Given the value of every single chicken for a poor villager, this conflict can result in killings of the respective fossas. […] Mortality of fossas in surrounding village areas seems to be a major problem," Lührs says.
Lührs says she is pessimistic, but not hopeless regarding the long-term survival of the fossa. To save the species the first thing that is needed is more research, including "an intensive fossa survey all over Madagascar" according to Lührs. Right now conservationists simply don't know how many fossas survive and where populations are viable.
Where forest has been burnt down, savannah dominates Madagascar’s landscape. This habitat offers grazing ground for many zebus but its biodiversity is low. Very few native species manage to survive in savannah habitat, mainly generalizers, such as birds and insects. Photo © Melanie Dammhahn.
"On the longer perspective, I see an urgent need to make local people benefit from conservation: possibly the only way to change their mind about how to deal with fossas would be to assign some economic value to a living fossa," Lührs says. "Until now villagers do not see any economic value in a fossa, they just perceive it as a pest. But in fact, many tourists come every year to Kirindy to see exactly this species. Their money, however, rarely ends up in the villages. What we need is the awareness that the forest and its biodiversity are property of Malagasy people and that we should pay money for them to protect this forest and this species thereby creating some alternative income. And we are talking about very little money from our perspective which could make big changes from a Malagasy perspective."
For Lührs working with the fossa, a little known species, has its many rewards, including the chance to make new discoveries and develop a conservation plan that may make all the difference between long-term survival and extinction.
"I've always been much more concerned about species that die out secretly without anyone ever knowing they existed at all. The fossa is certainly one of those species. For the sake of conservation of the world’s biodiversity, I would therefore like to encourage more researchers to focus on the 'forgotten species in the background'," she says.
In a January 2011 interview Mia-Lana Lührs discussed new discoveries about Madagascar's biggest predator, the fossa; conservation efforts needed to save the species; the joy of working with a little-known species; and if she'd whether be a male or female fossa.
A curious fossa. Photo © Nick Garbutt .
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